It is often claimed that the perspectives of the majority of citizens on foreign policy match those of politica elites since the implications of foreign policy issues are too complex for ordinary citizens to understand - with the result that they do not possess enough valid information to form independent, deeply-held opinIOns (Krippendorff, 1977; Blondel, Sinnott and Svensson, 1998; Lindberg and Scheingold, 1979). However, when analYSing public attitudes towards the Iraq crisis, this claim seems to be mistaken. For, not only were opinions deeply held, but in countries such as Italy and the UK, they diverged substantially from the views of politica elites.

Introducing gender quotas in politics is often a difficult endeavour: quotas tend to trigger controversial debates between those who find them a necessary, just and legitimate measure to redress women's under-representation, and those who think that they are arbitrary, discriminatory, contrary to the free will of the voter or an obstacle to national cohesion. More or less explicitly, quota debates extend to issues much wider than the narrow question of women's presence in parliament: discourses on gender quotas express contrasting understandings of political justice; gender, gender identities and gender inequalities; and the role of the state with regard to social and political inequalities between women and men. More generally, quota debates can be considered as sites of struggle for the redefinition of the relation between gender, justice and the political.

Nowhere was opposition to war in Iraq more clearly expressed than in Spain. Demonstrations against the war were the largest in Europe, with more than two milion people marching in Madrid and Barcelona on 15 February 2003 - part of a co-ordinated campaign across 57 cities throughout Spain, including all provincial capitals. The Spanish public has long been suspicious of the US, a sentiment which dates back to the vita support given to the Franco regime in the early 1950s in return for establishing military bases on the Spanish mainland, and which was compounded by US policy in Central and South America during the 1970s and 1980s.

In the preceding section, Amy Mazur outlined the main features and strengths of Feminist Comparative Policy. This new perspective provides a systematic way of analysing policies and their impact on gender relations, and thereby offers important contributions to the analysis of the state and to political science in general. However, feminist political science is far from a homogenous field. To paraphrase currently unfashionable past revolutionaries, a thousand methodological flowers blossom within feminist analysis as elsewhere in political science. This section intends to contribute to the ongoing dialogue between different perspectives, disciplines, and sub-fields within as well as outside of political science, as recommended by Birte Siim (2001) in an earlier contribution to EPS, by outlining key debates and methodological controversies within feminist political theory on the state. Particular attention will be given to the methodological contributions of discourse theory to feminist political theory as well as to empirical analysiS of gendered state action and policies.

Slovenin, enters the European Union as a kind of ‘success story’. Its transition to the free market economy was one of the least problematic, with few shocks, steady growth and stable economic indicators. Gross Domestic Product per capita increased from $6,275 in 1992 to $9,805 in 2001, and, in Purchasing Power Parities from sixty-four to seventy over the same period. The unemployment rate has fallen (from 7.2 per cent in 1996 to 6 per cent in 2002), and is relatively similar for men and women (5.7 per cent and 6.4 per cent, respectively) (Republic of Slovenia, 1997; 2004a).

This article attempts to explain why, despite sharing many commonalties in terms of size, power and geopolitical position, Denmark and Ireland adopted different policies towards the US-led war in Iraq. Given their shared characteristics (both are small-states on the periphery of Europe) neo-realist theories of international relations would have led one to expect these countries to pursue similar policies. Instead, Ireland chose to follow the path that seemed to be endorsed by a majority in two international organisations, the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), whereas Denmark gave its full support to the US-led coalition, thereby disregarding efforts to build consensus in the EU.

In the foregoing sections, Amy Mazur and Véronique Mottier discuss feminist methodologies in feminist comparative policy (Mazur) and in feminist political theory (Mottier). The aim of this piece is to apply some of their methodological insights. The article will briefly analyse some feminist discourses on the state in Finland and Britain and the ways in which these discourses influence feminist engagements with the state. As such, the piece captures the idea that the state has become an important focus of feminist theory, as argued by Mazur and Mottier. More specifically, the article combines three aspects that are increasingly central for feminist political analyses: the contributions of comparative theory (Mazur) and discourse analysis (Mottier), and the importance of contextual theory (Siim, 2001).

I have taught and researched about politics for what I now realise is a long time. I have never felt as strongly as I do now that our discipline needs a period of intellectual stocktaking and reflection on the problems and issues it should study. This does not mean ‘political studies’ is in crisis; quite the contrary. The discipline remains more relevant than ever, and, because this is so, we need to redirect ourselves so that we can cope with the reasons why and the potential dangers that arise from them.

Two events prompt me. The first was the 30th Anniversary of the Birkbeck School of Politics. Second, recently during interviews for a chair at another institution, I asked each of the candidates a stock question that I often ask to get people to respond outside their prepared answers: ‘what do you think the core agenda of political studies should be over the next decade?’

The methodological split in political science between different schools, for example between ‘rationalists’ and ‘social constructivists’, has been challenged by feminist political research. The European criticism of the American model of political research can be read as a methodological critique of ethnocentrism and ‘methodological individualism’. Comparatively speaking there is at least a normative vision of a more genuine methodological pluralism in European political science. The articles in this symposium present methodological pluralism as one key principle in feminist political research, which can serve as a basis for a dialogue between feminist research and mainstream political science. They illustrate that there is a conversation in feminist political research between an empirically grounded political research, cross-national analysis sensitive to context, and discourse analysis inspired by post-structuralism.

Gender quotas of various types have become a topic of intense interest to feminist political scientists during the last ten years. In this context, mentioning Finnish gender quotas, which only target indirectly elected bodies, tends to produce disbelieving stares: surely you do not regard them as significant or in any way comparable to reserved seats or quotas for electoral lists? Puzzled, I have ascribed this reaction to cultural differences, the varying emphasis given to policy deliberations in different political systems, or plain ignorance. The main reason for the latter seems to be a lack of information about the fact that the Finnish gender quota law is also applied to political executive structures at the local and regional levels. In Finland, unlike in many European countries where local executive power resides in the mayor's office, these happen to be major centres of power, especially at the municipal level.

This article presents the main perspectives of the Stockholm-based research project ‘Gender Quotas: a Key to Equality?’ and analyses recent developments in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries which illustrate the new trend in demands for gender quotas even in strictly male-dominated societies. How has it been possible to place the disempowerment of women on the agenda in these post-war countries where state-building processes are dominated by external forces?

The aim of the research project ‘Gender Quotas: a Key to Equality?’ is to carry out a comparative analysis of the new global trend in the use of electoral gender quotas.’ The focus of the study is on : 1) the discursive controversies surrounding the introduction of quotas; 2) the quota provisions themselves; 3) the often troublesome implementation of different types of quota arrangement in various electoral systems, and, finally 4) the effects of the introduction of quotas on women's political representation, in both quantitative (the number of women) and qualitative terms (political empowerment of women).

Gender quotas and related issues such as parity democracy or reservations for women are ‘hot’ in the sense that they feed intensive discussions a bout their legitimacy and efficiency, both at the theoretical and the practical level. The aim of these discussions is to search for convincing arguments, but they occasionally lead to the confusion of personal opinion with what is hoped to be a general normative argument (Meier, 2002). On the whole, however, these issues a re discussed in a sort of vacuum. Debates a relimited to the question of whether women should and need be present in larger numbers in political decision-making bodies. Sometimes discussions become somewhat broader and address whether sex is a relevant factor when it comes to issues of political representation, therefore including both men and women in the analysis.

The concept of Europeanisation enjoys increasing popularity within the study of European integration. Although there is considerable disagreement with regard to what it actually is, the bulk of the literature speaks of Europeanisation when something in national political systems is affected by something European. Scholars study the administrative adaptation of national states to (future) membership of the European Union; the implementation of EU directives; and, from a wider perspective, change and resilience in the structures and identities of nation-states under pressure from developments at the European level. Hence, a working definition of Europeanisation might be domestic change caused by European integration.

The above quotation relates to a conversation about the threat to French cathedrals posed by the German bombing raids of the First World War. Substituting the concept ‘University’ for ‘Cathedral’ gives a good sense of the present day evisceration of university values. British universities are succumbing to a tsunami of rampant managerialism that has already devastated morale in such other public-sector institutions as the BBC and the National Health Service which are now riddled with one-dimensional managerialist thought. Satire becomes increasingly difficult in a climate where inherent banality is used as a defence against rational critique.

Umbach and Scholl's (2003) intervention on the benefits of a core curriculum in European Studies contains much of interest, particularly their emphasis on the need for EU studies to be interdisciplinary and international, an emphasis which is gaining increasing recognition. There are however two issues that we wish to raise. The first is the idea of a core curriculum, the need for which we resist strongly. The second is to point out that Umbach and Scholl suppose that no core curriculum exists at present in EU studies: this is incorrect.